


Delayed Backup

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 02:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: When backup is delayed, Jim and Blair are both killed. Their ghosts help Major Crime discover why.





	Delayed Backup

Delayed Backup

by Bluewolf

"Call for backup!" Jim gasped.

"I did," Blair replied. "Just as soon as I realized we were facing Compton's men. That had to have been at least ten minutes ago." He saw the understanding he had come to a minute earlier dawn in Jim's eyes.

"Call Simon!" Jim said. Tell him... delayed backup... " He fired three shots in the direction of the criminal gang they were facing.

Blair nodded, ducked back and pulled out his cell phone again.

"Banks."

Blair quickly reported their situation and that he had called for backup fully ten minutes earlier. He heard Simon bellowing - not into the phone - then -

"Brown and Rafe are on their way, Blair."

"They might be in time - they might not. If they're not... It's been a privilege working under you, Simon." He hung up and rejoined Jim.

"I'm nearly out of ammo," Jim said. He was already using his reserve gun.

Blair gave him his gun and pulled out his own reserve weapon. "Brown and Rafe are on their way," he said. "But I'm not sure they'll get here in time."

"Who do you think - " he fired off two shots - "is responsible for the delay?"

"I'd guess Dispatch," Blair said, "because I thought we'd enough friends in Patrol that there wouldn't be any delay there." He saw a head appearing from behind a unit and fired a quick shot towards it; and saw the man fall. Not something he was happy about, but Compton's gang was too well-known for targeting mid-teens and getting them hooked on drugs - as well as breaking and entering - for him to have any hesitation in shooting.

Almost as if that was a signal, a rain of bullets battered against the container they were sheltering behind and the wall beside it. Apparently it took good marksmanship on the part of the police for this group of Compton's men to feel they were being victimized; until that moment they had simply been firing enough to keep Jim and Blair pinned down and accepting the odd shot from them as 'going through the motions'; Jim at least was well aware that while they were exchanging the odd shots some of Compton's men were moving their 'loot' out of this old building that the police had identified as the place where Compton stored the things he stole.

***

When Brown and Rafe arrived, it was to silence. They glanced at each other, registering the total absence of any Patrol cars, and began to move carefully towards the building. They were almost at it when two cars pulled up, and two pairs of Patrol cops exited them, to make their way quickly to Brown and Rafe, clearly understanding that if the two had reached the building unchallenged there was unlikely to be a challenge now.

"Where have you been?" Brown snarled.

"Been?" Sergeant Oliver asked.

"When were you sent here?"

"About three minutes ago."

"Sandburg originally phoned for backup nearly twenty minutes ago!"

"Detective, I just got the call and came straight here!"

They glared at each other, then Brown glanced at the driver of the other car. "I got the call nearly twenty minutes ago, but I was held up by an accident - the road was blocked; I came on as quickly as I could," Kevin Darling said.

Someone was lying, Brown thought, but investigating that would have to wait. He led a cautious entry into the building.

Everything was quiet. They moved carefully forward... and then Rafe gave a cry and, forgetting caution, ran forward.

Jim and Blair were lying motionless, half sheltered by a big... container, Rafe decided.

Darling, who had taken EMT training, moved to them, gave both a quick check, then looked up. "They're both dead."

Brown called for an ambulance to collect the two men, then the group, leaving Rafe sitting beside Jim and Blair, moved on to check the building. A short distance from where Jim and Blair lay, also partly sheltered by containers, they found four more bodies, later identified as members of Compton's gang. It was established that one had been shot by Jim, and three by Blair.

They called for a vehicle to collect those bodies, for more cops to check out the building, and after those arrived, the six men went back to Central Precinct.

***

Jim sat up, and registered that he was traveling in an ambulance. He looked over to the side and saw Blair lying there.

God - of course! Blair had been shot... but, Jim remembered, he had been shot too. He had fallen first, after they had shot two of Compton's men. He had been aware of Blair firing at the rest of the men, of two more of them going down before an unlucky shot took Blair down.

"Blair?"

Silence, and then, "Jim? What happened?"

"We were both shot... Currently we're in an ambulance, but... I sat up, but I can see myself still lying on a stretcher... and... and I can see you sitting up, but you're still lying there as well... "

"We're dead?"

"It's the only explanation. We're dead, but our spirits are still - "

"In other words, we're ghosts?" Blair was silent for a moment, then said, "This is so different from when Alex drowned me. Then, I was in a forest... ready to move on to... somewhere, with the wolf. This time... "

"This time we're together... We were murdered this time too, but not by Compton's men - by our own, really. Backup was late. I think we need to find out why, and if necessary make sure that whoever was late doesn't do it again to someone else."

"So for the moment - we go to the PD?"

"Yes. But how do we get there?"

Blair thought for a moment. Then he reached over and took Jim's hand. "If we're holding on to each other, we shouldn't get separated. Now... let's concentrate on your desk in Major Crime."

And they were there.

They looked around. "Simon's office," Jim said.

It was as easy to walk to it as - well, teleport, and only a second to pass through the door.

Rafe and Brown were standing in front of Simon's desk, clearly giving him their report. Both looked extremely unhappy.

"... cars arrived at the same time," Brown was saying. "One of the drivers said he'd just got the call; the other admitted to having got it some twenty minutes earlier, but claimed that he was held up on the road. It's clear that one of them was lying, maybe both - "

"Easy enough to find out when the message was sent by Dispatch," Simon said. He took a deep breath. "But if one admitted to getting the call nearly twenty minutes ahead of the other, that has to have been when it was made."

"That's what I said," Rafe muttered.

"So who were the patrol officers involved?" Simon asked.

Brown and Rafe looked at each other. "We didn't ask," Brown muttered. "We were too intent on checking the scene. But they'll have to give a report, so we can get their names that way."

Simon nodded slowly, then picked up his phone. "Rhonda - could you have a quick chat with the Patrol secretary. See which officers responded to Jim and Blair's call for back up... Thanks!" He gave a grim smile. "Sometimes the secretary sisterhood is quicker than official channels. And I know that the secretaries all liked Blair, at least."

She called back inside five minutes. The call had been answered by two cars; Officers Oliver and Littlewood, and Officers Darling and Fraser. Darling and Fraser had admitted to being late because they were held up by an accident, already being dealt with, and they had judged that it would take them longer to respond if they tried to turn and take another route. Oliver and Littlewood had continued to claim that they had responded immediately, but Dispatch confirmed that the call had gone out just on twenty minutes before either car arrived at the scene.

Simon immediately reported the incident to IA.

***

Meanwhile, Jim and Blair made their invisible way to Patrol.

Oliver and Littlewood were sitting at a desk; Darling and Fraser were in Captain Forrester's office.

The two ghosts crossed to Oliver and Littlewood, who was talking quietly.

"... got them killed, Corren. I wouldn't have worried if they'd just been hurt, maybe even permanently disabled; but Sandburg helped a lot of cops one way and another. And Ellison was a good detective."

Oliver scowled at his partner. "Sandburg admitted to fraud - yet he walked straight into a detective's job. But he was collateral damage. I've been waiting for a long time to take Ellison down." There was a note of satisfaction in his voice.

"But because we delayed, Compton got away - "

"There's always another day to get him - and he's lost four of his men."

"He wanted to take you down?" Blair sounded more than a little startled. "For a long time? What did you ever do to him?"

"Nothing that I know of," Jim muttered. "Come on, let's see what the other two are saying."

Forrester put his phone down as Jim and Blair walked through the door into his office. "Well, Boyd said there was a hold up on the road you took because of an accident, and that's confirmation that the road was blocked while the EMTs got the victims of the accident into ambulances."

"Are they, at least, okay?" Darling asked.

"Yes."

"I'm just sorry the delay let Compton's men kill Ellison and Sandburg."

Forrester nodded. "They'd probably have been the first to say that the price they paid was worth it, to have civilians given the medical attention they needed."

"As far as I could see, though, the accident could have been avoided if both drivers had been paying more attention to the road," Fraser put in.

"One of them, anyway," Darling said. "Accidents like that one are usually caused by carelessness on the part of just one of the drivers."

"All right," Forrester said. "Nothing about this was your fault. Dismissed, and tell Littlewood I want to see him."

The two men went out; a minute later, Littlewood walked in. Forrester nodded to the seats in front of his desk, and he sat.

The Captain looked at him for a minute, silent. "You are the junior in your car, only a few months out of the Academy," he said. "This incident will not look good on your record. You have one chance to redeem yourself.

"I know that Sgt. Oliver lied when he said you responded immediately to the call for backup. Now I ask you - why did he choose to delay responding?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Loyalty to a partner is admirable, but not when it involves the death of other co-workers," Forrester said.

Littlewood hesitated for a moment, then - "All I actually know, sir, is that Sgt. Oliver said Detective Sandburg was collateral damage. He seemed to feel he had a score to settle with Detective Ellison going back quite a while, but he didn't say what it was."

"I see... All right, Littlewood, dismissed; go straight home. I'll be assigning you to a different partner, starting tomorrow; when you come in, come to my office."

"Yes, sir. And for what it's worth... I'm sorry."

"Not much you could have done - the junior in the car, with the senior driving. Now head off - and don't stop to speak to Oliver on your way out."

***

Jim and Blair looked at each other, a question in Blair's eyes. Jim shook his head. "I have no idea," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, I've never met the man."

"It's not as if we do have much contact with Patrol," Blair agreed. "Okay, we know some of them because we trained with them at the Academy, and it's amazing how many of them are happy there and don't want to move to a detective's position. I've been on reasonably friendly terms with several of them since I was at the Academy - "

"I could say much the same," Jim agreed. "None of them are exactly friends, but 'being on friendly terms' is an accurate enough assessment. But I never met Oliver before this, that I'm aware of."

There was a knock on the door, and Oliver entered when Forrester called, "Come in."

He walked briskly to the desk, and Forrester nodded to a seat.

The Captain looked thoughtfully at his man. "You delayed answering Sandburg's call for backup," he said. "Why?"

"I answered immediately, sir."

"You took what might be called a scenic route to reach the scene," Forrester replied, "and as a result, two good detectives died."

"Sandburg was a fraud and a liar," Oliver said.

"Perhaps - but your partner told me you considered him collateral damage. You wanted something to happen to Detective Ellison. Why?"

"I didn't know Detective Ellison."

And no matter how Forrester reworded his questions, Oliver held to that.

"All right," Forrester finally said. "I hoped to deal with this myself, but you're giving me no alternative but to transfer this incident to IA. You are hereby suspended without pay. I'm assigning Littlewood to a different partner, and when you return to duty it will be as the junior partner to someone with more seniority. Dismissed."

He watched Oliver leave, then picked up his phone. "Betty, put me on to IA."

***

Meanwhile, Jim and Blair were following Oliver. He walked briskly through Patrol's bullpen, ignoring the handful of officers working there, and took the elevator to the garage, retrieved his car and drove away from the station, totally unaware of his two passengers. But now he was talking to himself. "I might lose my job over this, but it's worth it, to get Ellison killed."

"Why? I don't even know the man!" Jim repeated.

The rest of the drive was made in silence. Eventually Oliver turned into the drive of a house on the outskirts of Cascade. The entire front garden has been concreted, giving him a fairly large parking area.

"Makes sense, especially if he's not a keen gardener," Blair muttered as they followed Oliver into the house, along a short hallway and into a sparsely-furnished living room.

Oliver crossed to the fireplace, and lifted a photograph from the mantlepiece. "I got him, Norman. I finally got him. Now you can rest in peace."

"Oh, my God," Jim gasped.

"What?" Blair asked.

"I didn't realize... Oliver. That's a photo of Colonel Oliver. He's got to be related!"

"Colonel... who screwed you over and was still trying to do that when he fell off that roof... Does this guy know what a jerk Norman - his brother? - was? How dishonest?"

"We have to find a way of letting Simon know... "

Blair frowned. Then - "Come on - back to the PD!"

***

They stood in the middle of the bullpen, looking around. Several desks were empty, computers closed, looking deserted; these would be detectives out questioning witnesses, speaking to snitches, possibly checking a crime scene. Megan and Joel were both checking things on their computers.

Blair smiled, staring fixedly at Megan's computer. And then Megan said, "Joel... " with a startled note in her voice.

"Mmm?"

"This... is weird."

"What is?"

"There's a message coming up on my screen... "

Joel moved to look over Megan's shoulder.

'Check Corren Oliver's family for a relative called Norman.'

"Ssss... "

"This means something to you?" Megan asked.

"You know that Jim spent eighteen months in Peru, the only survivor of his unit."

"Yes."

"Norman Oliver was the colonel who sent Jim's unit to Peru. Eventually he was transferred to another position and his replacement was checking out some aerial photos and saw signs of wreckage and some graves; he sent a unit to check it out, and that was when Jim was found. Everyone in Jim's unit had been declared 'presumed dead'. Oliver must have covered his ass somehow so that he wasn't hauled over the coals for just declaring Jim and his men presumed dead without a search... He reappeared a year or two ago in connection with an anti-drugs agent called Ben Chavez. He planned to kill Chavez and blame Jim - only Jim managed to turn the tables on him somehow - I don't know the full story - and shot him before he could kill Chavez. Jim didn't actually kill Oliver, but the man lost his balance somehow and fell off the roof he'd been using to get a clear shot at Chavez. Seems that Oliver was one of several army officers who were working with a drug cartel - Chavez was going to report them for it.

"This - " He indicated the computer. "However that message got onto your computer is linking Patrol's Oliver to Colonel Oliver. We have to tell Simon."

"Good man, Joel!" Jim murmured as Joel headed for Simon's office.

"I wonder if our Oliver knew the full story, knew that Norman was basically a criminal?" Blair asked.

"'Loyalty to a... relative is admirable'," Jim said, misquoting what Forrester had said to Littlewood. "'But...'."

"And you didn't kill him. Not your fault he fell off that roof."

"Well, if I'm honest, it was the force of the shot that knocked him off balance so that he fell."

"But if he hadn't been up there in the first place, he wouldn't have fallen."

***

Two Patrol officers went to get Corren Oliver and take him back to the PD. Forrester chose two men who he knew were among the ones who appreciated Major Crime's observer-turned-consultant-turned-detective.

Oliver was so startled to discover that his boss (who had discussed things with Simon while waiting for Oliver to be brought in) knew why he had delayed backup that he gave in without trying to defend himself.

"Was the man your brother?"

"Yes... but Ellison killed him! I needed to avenge his death!"

"Did you know that your brother was working with a drug cartel? Yes, we have proof of that. That he was responsible for the deaths, in Peru, of the men in Ellison's unit? That he was planning on planting 'evidence' on Ellison that he was the man who killed Agent Chavez, the man who discovered the truth about the army officers who worked with the Cali cartel? Your brother wronged Ellison over and over. Did you know that although Ellison shot your brother to protect Chavez, it wasn't a killing shot. Your brother fell off the roof where he was waiting to kill Agent Chavez, and it was the fall that killed him.

"And if you look to defend what your brother did... that basically makes you a dirty cop, and that will be added to the charge sheet when you are tried for killing Detectives Ellison and Sandburg by delaying backup for them."

Oliver buried his face in his hands. After a moment he looked up. "I loved my brother," he said. "I trusted him. I didn't think he would ever do anything dishonest. I've believed for years that Ellison... I knew he blamed Norman for Peru, and I hated him for lying about Norman - I thought, to hide his own incompetence. I'm sorry... "

***

"He'll lose his job and his pension," Jim said as he and Blair turned away, walked through Forrester's door and along the corridor.

"I can't help but feel sorry for him," Blair said. "All because he loved and trusted his brother... "

"I wonder how he'd have reacted if the Colonel hadn't fallen off that roof; if he'd been arrested and charged, with Chavez' testimony that he was basically dealing drugs."

"Probably much the same way, but with Chavez the target of his hatred," Blair said. "I suspect that when they were children, Norman was the dominant one, and Corren did whatever his brother wanted.

"Anyway, now, what do we do? Stay here and give Major Crime evidence about various crimes through mysterious emails appearing on the computers?"

"I'm sort of tempted - but let's head off to the blue jungle, and have some fun. Maybe meet up with Incacha and let you learn a bit more about being a shaman. Then in our next life, you'll have a better idea of what you're doing."

Blair grinned. "Just as long as we are together in our next life."

"Where else would we be?" Jim asked.

Side by side they moved to a window and gazed out. "Incacha!" Jim called.

"Welcome, Enqueri," the familiar voice said, and the Chopek materialized with three spirit animals - panther and wolf at his side and an owl on his shoulder. Jim and Blair smiled at him - and then the three men and the three animals faded from the view of anyone who might have the insight to see them.

One day they would be reborn; and in due course resume their fight against crime.

***

In his office, Simon retrieved his copy of 'The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg' from the locked drawer in his desk.

It was time to restore his young friend's reputation... and, perhaps, give some hope to others who were worried about out-of-control senses. He could add a foreword explaining the circumstances leading to Blair's press conference.

He would have a word with Jack Kelso about a possible publisher; but it would not be Berkshire Publishing... not after the irresponsible way that firm had acted.

Simon reached for his phone. "Rhonda, get me Rainier University, please. I want to speak to Mr. Kelso."


End file.
